By Susan Shinn
sshinn@salisburypost.com
If ever someone would feel right at home, it’s Traci Burleyson.
She and husband Patrick and their three girls live in a house built by her great-great-grandparents at the turn of the century.
When they moved into the home nine years ago, the Burleysons completely gutted it and made it their own.
Traci admits that when she sees cavernous master suites belonging to her interior design clients, she does get a bit wistful.
The Burleysons have four bedrooms ó one still needs to be finished ó and only one bath.
But they also have a cozy home with lots of personality and lots of stories to tell.
At the moment, Patrick is adding a shower to the bathroom.
“It’s a process,” says Patrick, 34, who works for Freightliner. “I’ve never laid tile before.”
He has laid brick and block, however, so he’s at least familiar with the process.
Patrick asked advice from other people and did some reading, too.
“He got a book from Lowe’s and it’s been his Bible,” says Traci, 32.
Patrick has learned as he’s gone along. He tore out a fiberglass shower kit they’d had in the bathroom and built up a half-wall to serve the tile shower.
He laid a shower pan with individual blocks placed in 12 x 12 inch mats.
He cut out the sheetrock on the wall and put in cement board. Then he placed 12 x 12 ceramic tiles on the board. He’ll finish by filling in the tiles with grout.
Traci may or may not add glass to the half-wall.
“The trend is toward an open shower,” she says.
But that may not work at the Burleyson household with three girls, Macy, 9, Carly, 7, and Jillian, 5.
If she needs the glass, that’s fine with Traci. But she is trying to keep down costs. So far, they’ve only spent $1,000 on materials.
The bathroom floor looks like it has ceramic tiles on it, but Traci reveals it’s actually high-quality vinyl from Grove Supply.
“There’s not an even surface in this whole house,” Traci explains.
Patrick started on the project the last weekend in August and works on it on the weekends and for a while in the mornings before he goes on second shift.
The next project for the couple with be to tackle the fourth bedroom. Carly is dying to have a room to herself.
The house sat empty for 12 years. The last occupant before the Burleyson family was Tracy’s great-grandmother, Nora Albright. No one in the family wanted the house, and it was going to be bulldozed before Traci and Patrick stepped in.
“We had just gotten married,” Traci says. “Patrick is very handy, and we always wanted to find a farmhouse and redo it. So we took the plunge. We do love it here. The kids can ride their four-wheelers and feed the cows.”
And there’s a huge front yard for them to roam around with their puppy Lizzie.
Inside the house, they knocked out three walls so that the den, kitchen and dining area are all open to one another. Traci kept the parlor with its bay window with a slightly more formal look. Her mom gave her some oversized furniture, which is in this room, and she just picked up an occasional chair which she had recovered in a sassy leopard print. She loves it.
“I use this room a lot,” Traci says. “I like to come in here and read. Every room we use because there are five of us.”
The family is looking forward to using their “new” bathroom.
“One thing good is that all the girls can be in there at the same time,” Traci says. “It’s a mass production.”
So her clients can just keep their big bathrooms and big bedrooms, Traci says.
“We’re just thankful for what we have,” she says. “We’re resourceful.”